


How It Works

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Series: Working It Out [1]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:56:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair's love-life is criminal and Jim is going on stake-out.</p><p>First posted at 852 Prospect, January 2007</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Works

**Author's Note:**

> Original notes from 852 are in the body of the work.

No, I don't own them, which is maybe just as well, because I'm mean to them fairly often.

This shows a dysfunctional situation, but I live in hope that the guys will get their acts together.  


* * *

I don't want to think about how many ways this is wrong, so I'm not going to. Cue a memory of Sandburg rolling his eyes in exasperation about something or other. Too bad. 

Instead of thinking, I'm driving. Half an hour in Sandburg's wake. Lianna (and who the hell gives their daughter a name reminiscent of creeping vines?) offered him a home cooked meal as a date option. Yeah, something's cooking, all right. He headed out all bright-eyed anticipation, and here I am, driving my truck through Cascade on my way to my own special stake-out. I park across the road, feeling pretty safe. It's dark enough now, and I'll lay bets that Sandburg's concentrating on the action inside. 

Whatever she's cooked for him smells good. She might even eat a decent serving of it herself. She's a curvy little thing, small and dark the way Sandburg likes them, and with a working brain by the sound of the conversation. They're showing off for each other - aah, limerance. And I guess that since I haven't even known Sandburg for those three years that he was yapping on about when he was explaining that word, that I'm still in the throes of it too. Limerance. Infatuation. What a joke. 

Kissing. I can hear it, tiny, wet noises, the occasional low hum from her, from him. Then he laughs, and the chair scrapes against the floor as he stands up from the table. "Think I'll get a little closer," he murmurs. More kiss noises. I think about the shapes that mouth of his makes whenever he's sounding off about the obsession of the day. Which is me, often enough. No, not me. The Sentinel. But maybe me, maybe sometimes. Not now, though. Now it's Lianna with her heavy breasts and her big brown doe eyes. She sighs. Is he a good kisser, honey? Make the most of it. He never stays with any of you for long. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for. I've sure been anticipating it, ever since I realised that there was just the tiniest crack in the join of the curtains. Nothing that anyone else could use. A tiny split where the material doesn't quite fully veil the window, and a view, not to the bed, but to the mirror on Lianna's dresser. Good enough for government work, huh, Jimmy? So long as their youthful ardour doesn't mean that they end up on the couch, but no. Patience is rewarded. 

He's undressing her. He likes to do that. I wonder if he'd do it to me with the same single-minded attention. I like that thought. Sandburg's face caught in concentration, those broad hands of his trailing over my skin, drawing cloth over my body, drawing it away _from_ my body, leaving me naked. Yeah, I like that thought. He's kneeling on the ground in front of her, kissing her belly, gently fingering her between her legs. He looks up at her and smiles, pleased with himself, and pleased with her response. She fondles her breasts, and smiles right back at him when his breath catches. I can make him catch his breath, although he recovers pretty quickly. But he likes to watch from under his lashes when I'm not wearing that much. Thing is, is he watching me, or his fucking Holy Grail? 

Really should pay more attention, Ellison, because they're on the bed now. Do a little piggy-backing there, sight on to sound, and I never know how the hell this works. Synaesthesia? Or just a vivid, perfect fantasy of sight my brain builds out of the jigsaw pieces that other senses throw down in front of me? Sandburg doesn't really know either. Simply said that it seemed like a good idea at the time. He got uncomfortable there when he realised that he didn't know why or how it worked. He's a guy that likes his why and how, nearly as much as I do. 

But the why and the how don't matter as I see the foreshortened line of his body leaning over hers, reflected in the mirror. She's pretty, with a rich, creamy skin, but that's just something to note for the record. The real fascination is his skin, olive where the sun gets to it, but just as pale as hers where it hides under his clothing. No hiding now - she's pushed him onto his back and he's grinning as she pulls his pants and his shorts away. And now for sure it's fantasy as I close my eyes and stroke against my dick under my sweats. Loose pants. Wouldn't want to hurt anything important now, would we? Him grinning at me as I strip his layers off. 

I wonder if she knows how little she's getting of him right now. Yeah, he's having fun, he's got his head in the game. Literally, given she's just gone down on him. But that's all it is, just a game. He's cute when he's playing, but I've seen him when it's not a game, when everything is serious, and he's god damned beautiful then. His hand rests on her head. That makes me shiver. His hand resting on my head, stroking down my cheek to my wide open jaw. And there's no ugly stretch of latex between me and what I want, just him and the scent and taste of his skin. 

He moves his hand to her shoulder, mutters that he's going to come. She doesn't move, instead keeps at him, and he gives in to the inevitable and lies back, the angle of his jaw settling into pleasure. When he's finished, he leans up on his elbows and raises his eyebrows. His expression is good humoured though. "Do you want me out the door that quickly?" 

She slides up his body, wriggling like some pale, sweet-fleshed fish. "Not at all. I've got a lot of confidence in your powers of recovery. Now that the edge is off, you can fuck me a long time." 

He chuckles at that. "Bossy girl," he says affectionately. "But I like a woman who knows what she wants." Especially when what she wants is you, right, Chief? But never let it be said that you're not eager to please. If the lady wants fucking, then you're more than happy to oblige, once you've returned that little oral favour. You and that mouth of yours. 

I ache. It wouldn't take much to finish it, but I want to wait for him, and I shake my head, because I'm the dumbest of dumb shits right about now. So I rub myself, just enough to promise my dick that yes, it will get to come, delayed gratification's a great thing. But he is fucking her a long time, and she likes it plenty if all those breathy little sounds mean anything. I can just see the fine sheen of sweat along his spine, the way his ass works, his head dipping below his shoulders to whisper something dirtily beautiful into her ear. He's breathing hard, his biceps standing out as he supports his weight. 

They're both going for it now, and it's going to be good, which is probably exactly what he thought would happen. Cocky little bastard, you think it's always going to go right for you, whether it's helping your lover come, or jumping out of planes or following me into gunfights, don't you? You ought to be a little less sure of destiny, Chief, because it ain't necessarily so. I want to do right by you, but bullets make it tough. 

I'm into fantasy again. He likes to fuck. Wonder how he feels about being fucked, and I lick that long line of sweaty spine in anticipation, rub that gorgeous ass and let my palms feel it all, skin, the slide of the muscle under all that gorgeous skin, fine hairs turning into coarser hair low to his cleft and running into his thighs. He shudders, maybe not just pleasure, maybe he's a little scared, maybe he wants to say no. But I won't listen. God, no, not to hurt him, but - I want him to know how it feels, to be under the hands of someone who doesn't really know what the hell he's doing, however much he wants to do it right, to do right by someone... 

He's all I hear now, him fucking Lianna, getting fucked by me, while I take the last risk and finally let myself have what I came here for. It lasts a long time, my noise and his echoing together in my head, until I gulp in my breath, damn near tasting solitary sex, and tuck my dick tidily away and stuff slimy wipes into a plastic bag. 

Nearly time to go, but I have to listen just a while longer, to tired, happy murmurs, to the sound of Sandburg getting out of the bed and drawing the curtains back. I sit there, frozen in his gaze, even though I know he can't see me in the gloom of the street. He's looking towards my position in the cab, he knows it's me, but his eyes don't quite look the right way to meet mine. It makes him look uncomfortably like a blind man, but he's not blind. He is naked, though, standing there in challenge. I followed him here, this is what he is here. Anyone else walking by might see him standing there in the dark, might realise that he's naked by the lines and shape of him, but they wouldn't actually see that much. I do. 

He shakes his head. His lips move, air barely moving past them but I hear him, as he knows that I will. "Guess that we have to talk. Whadda ya think, Jim?" That damn sureness deserts him, for a bare moment, as his look turns inwards in trouble and the back of his knuckles stroke just under his collarbone. Then he's gone. 

Lianna sleepily asks why he went to the window, and the great Sandburg Travelling Show is up and running again, as he makes some stupid excuse about going with the vibe, and she laughs, hardly more than a puff of breath in his face. 

I pull out onto the road wondering how the hell he knew that I was there. Whether he saw me some other time, or whether he just knew I was there, the way he knew about the dials idea or piggybacking my senses. Our very own travelling show, but I want something real, damn it. I'm not as anxious as I ought to be because I remember that uncertain, sensual touch across his chest. Maybe, maybe the professor is ready to believe that there's more than one way that we can do right by each other. However scary it might be. 

* * *

End 

How It Works by Mab: [mabinbrowne@hotmail.com](mailto:mabinbrowne@hotmail.com)  



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